During the cooking of food within a cookware item such as a pot or pan, splattering of high temperature grease, oil or food may occur. This occurrence presents a risk of burn to any person standing in the vicinity of the cookware item. This occurrence also causes surroundings to be soiled.
To prevent such splattering, it is known to employ the use of a splatter screen over the cookware item. U.S. Pat. No. 3,807,596 describes an exemplary prior art splatter screen. The splatter screen includes a circular metallic rim, a handle attached to the rim, and an aluminum screen retained within the rim. During use, the splatter screen is placed loosely on top of a frying pan to prevent splatter from the pan.
The prior art splatter screen is in no way retained to the pan and is held in place only by the force of gravity. Thus, there is risk that the splatter screen may fall off of the pan when the pan is lifted, moved, bumped, etc. In addition, the prior art splatter screen has no feature for accommodating a lid or cover of the frying pan. If the lid or cover is desired to be used, it must simply be placed on top of the splatter screen where it rests loosely and is retained only by the force of gravity.